27 March 2020
News
Slovenská sporiteľňa is responding to current events with extraordinary measures to minimise the negative impact of the present crisis on the lives of its clients and to help Slovakia in its fight against coronavirus.
“We are aware of the difficult situation our clients are facing as individuals, families, self-employed workers and small businesses. As in the economic crisis of 2009, Slovenská sporiteľňa stands on the side of its clients and employees. We see it as our duty to ease our clients’ burden at a time when they need to dip into their savings and cannot create new deposits or repay loans. As a responsible leader and the largest bank in Slovakia, we recognise the ties that unite us and we want to help to mitigate the consequences of the unprecedented situation affecting our people and all our country. We have therefore prepared an extraordinary support package that may make it easier to manage the effects of the current situation. The extraordinary measures of Slovenská sporiteľňa will have a positive effect on our half-million retail clients as well as thousands of companies and entrepreneurs. In conclusion, allow me to express my gratitude to all my colleagues at Slovenská sporiteľňa for their hard work, courage and commitment in these difficult times in which we find ourselves together with our clients,” explains Peter Krutil, CEO of Slovenská sporiteľňa.
Our support for clients covers four areas:
1. Free accounts and fee discounts guaranteed for six months
For nearly 500,000 clients, Slovenská sporiteľňa is introducing guaranteed conditions for free accounts, fee discounts and better terms for mortgages and consumer loans for the next six months. In this way, it aims to ease their burden when they need to dip into their savings and cannot create new deposits or repay loans.
Slovenská sporiteľňa’s current loyalty programme “Smart Combination”, enables clients to keep an account free of charge or with a 50% fee discount on satisfaction of three simple conditions. These include one or three regular payments, card payments and regular savings or investments. Since more and more people are having income difficulties, this may affect their regular card payments or their ability to save and invest. Therefore, everyone who satisfied the conditions for a free or half-price account in 2020 will be guaranteed their discount for the next six months. Likewise, clients who do not have enough funds for savings or investments after making loan payments will not lose favourable interest rates under the Better Interest programme.
2. A million euros for the fight against the coronavirus from the Slovenská sporiteľňa Foundation and the bank.
The Slovenská sporiteľňa Foundation has also decided to help and, in cooperation with the bank, it has set up a fund of over one million euros for the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. This money will be used for a specific purpose that will be agreed with the Central Task Force of the Slovak Republic.
3. Changes to loan schedules
Slovenská sporiteľňa has developed an interim digital process to enable the public to request lower instalments. It will be possible to sign contract amendments online using George.
The bank is also engaged in intensive communication with the regulator and the government to find more ways to help clients. “We believe that we will soon be able to present a systematic solution to allow the suspension of payments for 6 months without the payment schedule changes necessitated by the coronavirus resulting in an entry in the credit register that negatively impacts the client,” adds Peter Krutil.
4. Assistance for firms
For entrepreneurs and firms, we are offering the possibility to defer instalments, to extend lines of credit and to obtain new money to cope with these difficult times. As above, everything can be done online without the need to visit the bank.
Safe banking at branches
Besides secure banking with George and the call centre, the bank is introducing new measures for branches:
- clients must wear a protective mask and enter the branch one at a time
- clients queueing in front of a branch must stand a safe distance of 2 metres from each other
- priority will be given to older clients in the mornings
- 250 plexiglass screens have been installed to reduce the risk of coronavirus transmission
- check branch opening hours here: www.slsp.sk/pobocky